Two letters, each on bifoliate leaves, the first bordered in black on 22 Hyde Park Gate S. W. stationery; with additional descriptive notes; held together in a custom green cloth and morocco portfolio. Bell, Sketches in Pen and Ink, p. 69.

Item #378264

Two letters written to Stella Duckworth, the stepsister of both Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell: the first from her brother, Gerald, likely autumn 1896, and the second from "Helen," sent just after Stella's wedding to John Waller "Jack" Hills on April 10, 1897.

Gerald's note — opening with "My Dearest" — is not dated by him outside of "Friday," but "1896" has been added in another hand at top (correcting an earlier "1897"). As further in the letter he states he had received a postcard from a Miss Edwards stating "Today is the 2nd Oct. may I remind you," and additional content makes clear that Stella and Jack were a couple at that point (they had become engaged in August 1896), the annotation appears to be correct, indicating the letter may have sent to Stella on a visit to Jack's family near Carlisle in early October that year. (Both Stella's diary entry of Tuesday, October 13, 1896, and an October 16th letter from Jack to Stella — each at the New York Public Library's Berg Collection — place her back in London by at latest October 12th.)

He begins by asking "how she is getting on," adding, "We have not had a line. Perhaps you have not written." Gerald then writes about the two Stephen sisters, as well as their brother Adrian:

"Vanessa and I had an excellent dinner. White soup fish of sorts, roast chicken | Sophia [the family cook] forgot the bread-sauce | & a savory. Adrian has gone to bed & now Vanessa & Virginia are blowing kisses to each other in preparation of going upstairs."

He relates additional news of family members and acquaintances, and on the last page states, in pure older brother fashion,

"My love to Jack who I hope is not keeping you up. Impress upon him the importance of going to bed early. Its one of those unpleasant things which ought to [be] done without continual saying. You will enjoy your days much more. Just try & see if you don't."

He closes, quite correctly, with, "I wonder if you can read this scratch."

The second is another hasty note, written by a woman named Helen, who begins, "I cried when I found that I might have come to the house after all this afternoon & seen you," noting, "I have had a long talk with Margaret Massingberd who has comforted me a little." (Margaret, née Lushington, and her sisters had grown up alongside Virginia and Vanessa.)

After stating that "Dear George" (Duckworth, Stella's brother) had said "no one was to come after the wedding so I did not dare to try even," she adds, "We will all love Vanessa & Virginia & all yr. loved one for you while you are away," then closes with, "Give Jack my love — I shd. have enjoyed squeezing his hand — I have felt so much joy for you both."

While signed simply as "Helen," the writer is almost certainly Helen Holland, a Duckworth cousin who, according to Vanessa Bell, was quite mad, and "insisted on praying in the room in which Stella had died" (Vanessa Bell, Sketches in Pen and Ink, p. 69), a theatrical gesture which in many ways mirrors the slightly histrionic tone of her letter.

Tragically, Stella fell ill with peritonitis on her honeymoon, and after returning early to England, died on July 19, just over three months after her wedding.

Both letters were annotated and initialed by Mary Hills ("MH"), the second wife of Jack Hills, who inherited the letters after his death in 1938.